\ 


TO 


UP 


MIDNIGHT 

George 
Meredith 


\^: 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT 


BY  GEORGE  MEREDITH 


A  SERIES  OF  DIALOGUES  CONTRIBUTED 
TO  THE  GRAPHIC 

Now  Reprinted  for  the  First  Time 


JOHN    W.     LUCE    AND     COMPANY 
BOSTON,     1913 


U(p5~ 


INTRODUCTION 


807612 


INTRODUCTION 

OF  the  many  weaknesses  of  authors  not 
one  seems  more  general  than  the  pred- 
ilection for  pedagogic  dialogue.  From 
Plato  to  the  present  day  contributor  no  fair 
opportunity  to  create  an  imaginary  group  of 
super-keen  conversationalists,  who,  from  sup- 
posedly different  angles  of  personality,  bat- 
tledore and  shuttle-cock  current  opinion 
between  them,  is  allowed  to  escape.  With 
high  hopes  he  sets  his  stage  and  with  a  grow- 
ing conviction  of  the  importance  and  diver- 
sity of  his  characters  he  leads  on  one  mario- 
nette after  another  until  the  group  is  com- 
plete, and  then  proceeds  to  pull  the  strings. 
It  is  great  fun,  to  be  sure.  Meredith  said  so 
when  he  began  with  ''Up  to  Midnight." 
They  all  say  so  and  mean  it.  But  somehow 
the  audience  quickly  finds  itself  yawning,  and 
the  author  in  time,  though  to  be  sure  the 
last  of  all,  finds  that  it  takes  but  a  very  short 
time  for  his  play-people  to  in-breed,  or 
in-write,  to  a  single  type,   that  he  is  ex- 


pressing  himself  in  the  same  key  through  half 
a  dozen  mouths  and  that  the  fun  of  pulling 
the  strings  is  hardly  compensating.  Then, 
too,  the  long-suffering  editor  and  publisher, 
the  first  to  notice  the  empty  benches,  has  a 
limit  of  patience  and  calls  a  halt.  The 
obsequies  are  usually  brief,  though  thorough. 
In  the  case  of  "Up  to  Midnight"  this  was 
particularly  so.  So  thorough,  indeed,  that 
the  editor  of  Meredith's  complete  works 
omits  it  entirely,  and  his  bibliographer  with 
far  less  excuse  does  likewise. 


THE   following  paragraph,   which    ap- 
peared in  The  Graphic,  London,   on 
February  1,  1913,  reveals  Mr.  Mere- 
dith's own  view  of  this  work  as  expressed 
in   a   letter   which   he   wrote   to   Frederick 
Greenwood : 

George  Meredith  as  a  Contributor 
TO  The  Graphic 

The  first  of  his  series  of  causeries 
Up  to  Midnight'' 


<'; 


A  correspondent  has  been  pointing  out 
that  Mr.  Meredith  once  contributed  a  series 
of  articles  to  these  columns  forty  years  ago, 
although  they  are  not  included  in  the  bib- 
liography of  the  Memorial  Edition  of  his 
works.  He  refers  to  these  in  a  letter  to 
Frederick  Greenwood,  "  I  am  having  some 
fun  in  The  Graphic,  and  might  by  and  by 
turn  the  Dialogues  to  good  purpose." 

In  response  to  various  requests  we  have 
decided  to  reprint  the  series. 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT 


I. 


The  Argument.  —  Power  of  Speech  of 
British  Islanders  Vindicated.  The 
Lesser  Parliamentarians  and  Scan- 
dal of  them.  Sir  John  Saxon  and 
Mr.  Helion.  An  Impudent  Verse. 
Reunion  of  Friends,  and  a  Short 
Conversation  up  to  Midnight. 

SHALL  it  be  said  of  us  that  conversa- 
tion has  expired  in  our  island,  that 
we  do  our  talking,  as  the  Chinese 
do  their  dancing,  by  nods  and  blinks  at 
a  mazy  proxy  Press?  There  is  as  good 
speech  in  the  mouth  as  ever  came  out 
of  it.  How  this  world  of  Britain  is  mis- 
understood! Why,  we  are  of  the  born  race 
of  dialoguers;  we  can  give,  and  we  can 
take  too;  our  ear  is  our  neighbor's  if  he 
wants  it;  we  have,  being  fitted,  capacity 
for  deep  digestive  pauses;  let  our  neighbor 
but  show  that  the  passion  of  the  vocabu- 
lary is  on  him,  and  we  are  silent,  even  as 


2  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

one  wave  of  ocean  sinks  to  swell  another. 
And  concerning  our  power  of  giving:  are  we 
not   England,    Scotland,    Ireland,    with  the 
PrincipaUty  of  Wales,  and  a  seasoning  from 
America    like    a    whiff    of    Atlantic    brine? 
English  is  solid,  Scottish  is  shrewd,  Irish  a 
jet;  and  there  you  have  earth,  well,   and 
water;  a  sober  source,  a  receptacle  for  in- 
filtration, and    a    lively  abundance.     Cam- 
brian seized  by  his  awen  is  a  boiling  geyser. 
All   of   them    combined,    with    their   inter- 
fusions and   their  varieties,   not   forgetting 
the  pungent  flavor  of  Das  Americanismus 
coming  over  them  occasionally  (a  flavour  of 
which  no  man  shall  declare,  whether  it  be 
that    of    age    that    hath    been    long    since 
pickled,  or  of  youth  that  marvellously  over- 
skippeth  itself  into  lantern-jawed  maturity); 
all  these,  I  repeat,  so  hearty  and  downright, 
so  sly,  so  voluble,  so  fiery,  are  a  guarantee 
for  speech.     Moreover,  we  are  great  travel- 
lers; we  see  and  hear  many  curious  things. 
We   have    Europe,    Asia,    Africa,    and    the 
Americas  pouring  in  a  constant  supply  of 
strange    facts    and    anecdotes.     We    breed 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  3 

eccentrics:  we  have  humourists  in  every 
walk,  and  of  all  kinds,  simple  and  complex. 
Our  Joe  Miller  (and  pray  do  not  de- 
spise him,  for  Joe  salteth  and  peppereth 
conversation,  though  he  must  not  be  used 
with  less  discretion  than  salt  and  pepper)  is 
the  richest  and  biggest  fellow  of  all  his 
brethren.  The  Joes  of  the  Continent  are 
pigmies  to  him,  beggars.  They  have  be- 
sides a  trick  of  showing  our  poor  human 
nature  at  its  frailest  and  worst,  like  an 
Italian  mendicant  confraternity,  and  make 
a  joke  of  that  to  catch  a  halfpenny  laugh, 
which  mannered  persons  cry  avaunt  at. 
We  will  speak  no  more  of  them.  Very 
well,  then;  I  maintain  that  we  have  the 
two  treasure-stores  for  conversation,  the 
full  one  and  the  empty  one.  Nature  has 
started  us  with  a  Treaty  of  Reciprocity. 
Imagine  the  gift  of  language  in  the  form  of 
a  piano.  I  protest  it  is  not  to  be  superior 
to  be  pressing  the  pedal  and  insisting  on 
sound,  like  your  Germans,  or  to  be  running 
up  the  gamut-octaves  incessantly  and  down 
again,  and  then    bumping    the    notes    and 


4  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

splashing  out  a  tune  all  to  oneself,  in  the 
fashion  of  the  French,  This  it  is  to  be 
transcendent  monologuers,  copious,  over- 
flowing, possibly  brilliant,  but  it  is  not  to 
be  conversational.  A  Frenchman  sees  a 
dozen  things  to  reply  to  before  you  have 
well  begun:  a  oui  or  a  non  is  quite  enough 
to  strike  a  new  keynote  for  another  of  his 
symphonies,  and  he  is  not  to  be  restrained. 
Those  good  Germans  perturb  the  ear's 
tight  drum  with  thunderous  emphasis,  as  if 
nothing  but  a  drumstick  should  rightfully 
play  on  it.  We  seem  to  be  in  a  far  earlier 
state  of  evolution  from  our  early  progeni- 
tors than  the  one  which  Mr.  Darwin  has 
examined  for  us  of  late,  while  they  are 
what  they  call  conversing.  In  fine,  there  is 
that  in  English  sobriety,  Scotch  system, 
Irish  fluency,  and  Welsh  ardour,  which 
sanctions  and  animates  the  conversation, 
such  as  you  will  not  get  elsewhere.  And  it 
is  still  to  be  had,  though  the  present  is  not 
an  Augustan  epoch  for  it.  The  Parliament 
of  the  Lesser  House,  as  they  termed  a 
certain  private  gathering  of  gentlemen  hav- 


UP   TO   MIDNIGHT  5 

ing  for  their  object  to  converse,  is  said  to 
have  been  the  scene  of  admirably  sprightly 
evenings.  By  some  mischance,  inexplicable 
to  a  greater  number  of  the  members,  it 
came  to  an  end.  It  was  too  ambitious,  or 
it  had  lost  its  original  ictus,  or  it  fell  to 
dealing  in  scandal;  or  worse,  its  doors  had 
opened  to  a  bore.  None  can  tell  the  exact 
reason  for  its  abrupt  disruption.  Had  the 
members  been  persecuted  they  would 
doubtless  have  held  together  valiantly,  as 
in  the  days  of  iron  when  the  affiliator  of 
any  violently  dispersed  society  took  refuge 
in  woods  and  caves,  and  communicated  by 
signs  and  countersigns,  and  a  variety  of 
subterfuges;  all  which  things  disposed  the 
minds  of  men  to  an  enduring  toughness,  so 
that  they  became  solidly  welded.  But  now 
that  systematic  persecution  has  been  with- 
drawn, the  ironical  gift  of  freedom  we 
enjoy  lets  associations  live  that  they  may 
perish  of  their  own  combustibility;  and  this 
they  arrive  at  with  astonishing  precocity. 
It  has  been  asserted  that  the  Parliament  of 
the  Lesser  House  lasted  for  a  space  barely 


6  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

beyond  a  couple  of  years;  a  short  period 
indeed  if  we  consider  the  nature  of  its 
aims,  though  when  the  plan  it  was  founded 
on  is  contemplated,  the  number  of  mem- 
bers embraced  by  it  will  appear  prodigious. 
A  combination  or  club  of  gentlemen  meet- 
ing simply  to  converse,  and  agreeing  to 
tolerate  in  one  another  plain  speech  upon 
every  topic  discussed,  could  hardly  expect 
to  count  themselves  twenty;  yet  they 
passed  that  limit.  It  is  true  that  they 
exploded  as  soon  as  they  had  done  so. 
The  famous  figure  of  English  rhetoric  which 
speaks  of  the  cup  being  full,  and  the  single 
drop  in  excess  making  the  waters  of  bitter- 
ness overflow,  may  be  applied  to  them,  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  result.  They  were 
scattered  in  a  manner  unintelligible  to  pure 
reason.  The  report  of  the  wicked  was  that 
it  arose  from  one  of  the  waiters  finding  his 
shoe-latchet  undone,  and  applying  to  one 
of  the  young  women  of  the  establishment 
to  fasten  it  for  him;  she  was  seen  kneeling 
at  the  man's  feet  in  the  hall  by  a  venerable 
member,   who  condemned  the  pair  in  our 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  7 

emphatic  vernacular,  especially  objurgating 
against  the  eternal  intrusions  of  the  sex.  It 
happened  that  a  certain  member,  a  Mr. 
Brighton,  had  given  notice  of  a  motion  to 
admit  ladies  to  a  share  of  their  privileges, 
a  detestable  project  in  the  eyes  of  old  Sir 
John  Saxon,  the  Warwickshire  squire;  and 
no  sooner  had  Mr.  Brighton  undertaken 
the  defence  of  the  above-mentioned  girl, 
than  Sir  John  took  up  the  whole  question, 
to  the  tune  of  "Women  in  their  proper 
places."  The  raging  of  this  conflict  over- 
head caused  a  revolution  below,  where  it 
was  justly  argued,  primarily,  that  the  act 
was  in  itself  innocent;  secondly,  that  in  any 
case  it  might  easily  have  been  overlooked; 
and  lastly,  that  gentlemen  who  made  so 
much  of  trivial  circumstances  were  not 
worth  serving.  The  gentlemen  were  in 
consequence  very  badly  served,  and  from 
perpetually  complaining  to  the  steward, 
they  afflicted  him  with  the  servants'  epi- 
demic, and  he  departed,  leaving  an  obscur- 
ity in  the  record  of  his  transactions  which 
caused     an     investigation  —  a     proceeding 


8  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

hateful  to  the  world  underneath  at  all 
times,  intolerable  in  a  season  of  smothered 
anger.  The  servants  followed  the  steward 
in  single  file,  and  it  is  said  that  this  was 
sufficient  to  break  up  the  famous  Parlia- 
ment of  the  Lower  House,  which  had  been 
for  a  moment  actually  dreaded  by  society, 
and  which  it  was  once  considered  so  much 
a  distinction  to  belong  to. 

Hence  at  least  the  saying  that  they 
were  lifted  off  a  footman's  shoe.  The 
amount  of  truth  in  it  is  perhaps  not  meas- 
urable, from  its  diminutiveness,  but  clubs 
that  have  dealt  their  blows  about  must 
expect  a  hearty  kick  whenever  they  have 
consented  to  collapse;  particularly  a  club 
whose  members  assumed  the  right  to  speak 
plainly  on  every  topic.  It  is  clear  that 
they  can  but  exist  at  the  mercy  of  the 
topic  destined  to  make  their  outspeaking 
too  much  for  their  cohesion. 

Down  at  the  meet  the  other  day  at 
Alley-in-Arden,  when  the  hounds  were  at 
fault  for  some  few  minutes.  Sir  John  Saxon 
came  across  Mr.  Helion,  and  hailed  him,  to 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  9 

the  efEect  that  he  was  always  glad  to  see 
one  of  the  Lesser  Parliamentarians  any- 
where. Mr.  Helion  remembered  pensively 
the  strong  support  he  had  given,  without 
much  interrogation  of  his  conscience,  to 
Brighton's  motion  for  flooding  the  club  with 
the  disintegrating  element,  i.e.,  with  ladies. 
He  hastened  to  repeat  a  good  story.  Sir 
John  warmed  to  him  after  laughing,  and 
asked  for  news  of  other  old  members,  to 
wit.  Sir  Patrick,  and  Mr.  M'Nimbus,  Dr. 
Anthony,  and  those  two  ends  of  the  scale 
in  every  mortal  conversation,  Mr.  Brigh- 
ton and  Mr.  Finistare,  named  familiarly 
Optimy  and  Pessimy,  who  used  to  be  such 
fun  when  discussions  had  been  stripped  to 
the  bone,  and  those  two  fought  over  it. 
Mr.  Helion  invited  Sir  John  to  meet  them 
at  table.  ''With  great  pleasure,"  the  old 
gentleman  said,  "if  you'll  let  the  table  be 
mine.  Bring  them  down  to  me.  I  am  too 
old  to  dine  out." 

Mr.   Helion  complimented  him  on  his 
firm  seat  in  the  saddle. 


10  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Sir  John  thanked  heaven  that  he  was 
still  at  home  there,  but  affirmed  that  he 
imagined  all  writers  had  set  their  faces 
against  hunting.  "And  what  on  earth  have 
they  got  to  give  us  in  the  place  of  it?  A 
Turkish  bath!  It's  the  nearest  approach 
to  making  mechanical  men  I've  heard  of 
yet.  I  would  say  'Pardon  me'  to  any  one 
but  an  old  L.  P.  man.  But  here's  the 
truth:  you  writers  sit  in  a  chair  half  your 
days,  and  you  get  to  thinking  too  thin  and 
too  fine.  If  my  blood,  at  my  age,  goes  as 
swift  as  hounds  in  full  cry,  I  say  I'm  a 
better  judge  of  what's  good  for  a  man  than 
you;  and  I'm  very  much  obliged  to  my 
stag  or  my  fox:  and  I  don't  believe  I'm 
more  of  a  brute  than  the  fox's  advocate, 
though  he  calls  me  one.  That  was  one  of 
our  old  arguments,  Helion,  and  I  held  my 
ground.  Depend  upon  it,  when  you  writers 
get  below  the  temperature  of  healthy  blood 
—  and  you  all  do;  you  must,  with  that 
everlasting  scrawling  of  yours  —  you  may 
be  good  at  logic,  but  you  don't  belong  to 
your  generation.     You're  behind  or  ahead 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  11 

• 

somewhere:  you're  not  in  the  race.  Let 
men  run  as  long  as  they  can.  My  experi- 
ence is  that  warm  blood  is  kinder  than 
cold,  though  an  old  dog-fox  does  lose  his 
brush  for  it.  There!  there's  stuff  for  a 
song  for  you." 

''Oh,     certainly,"     said     Mr.     Helion, 
bowing. 

Let  idiots  addle 

Their  pates  with  the  pen. 
I  straddle  my  saddle. 

And  ride  among  men. 
The  Turkish  bath  box  is, 

For  muscle,  a  sham; 
I  owe  it  to  foxes, 

I'm  strong  as  I  am! 


((( 


'Straddle  my  saddle's  a  notion  comes 
out  of  a  desk,"  cried  Sir  John.  ''By  the 
way,  I  don't  mind  owing  it  to  foxes.  You 
can't  beat  me  with  a  sneer.  That's  for 
fellows  who  sit  all  day  hatching  them." 

Sir     John     presently     confessed     that 
"Straddle   my   saddle"    was   one   of   those 


12  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

melancholy  rhymes  which  threaten  to  haunt 
a  man  for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  and  he 
rather  earnestly  entreated  Mr.  Helion  to  be 
of  his  party,  and  join  the  good  old  EngUsh 
side.  At  that  moment  the  pretty  note  of 
the  hounds  —  what  more  musical  on  a  soft 
breezy  winter's  day?  something  between  a 
sob  and  a  chuckle  —  called  him  off.  He 
shouted  over  his  coat-tail:  "Make  sure  of 
Sir  Patrick  —  eight  beds  —  a  fortnight  — 
Christmas!"  — 

It  was  in  this  manner,  the  latest 
chronicle  assures  us,  that  some  of  the 
scattered  members  of  the  club  reassembled, 
and  again  the  question  was  started,  **By 
what  means  had  they  been  broken  up?" 
Their  president,  a  man  of  head  and  weight, 
had  been  summoned  to  office  in  India,  the 
Doctor  observed,  forgetting  himself.  As  if 
an  ostensible  reason  were  wanted!  The 
habit  of  the  Lesser  Parliamentarians  was 
to  play  their  themes  until  there  sprang  a 
good  one  for  the  chase. 

''What  a  price  we  pay  for  India!" 
said  Mr.  Finistare.     The  Doctor  perceived 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  13 

his  error  immediately;  for  a  serious  word 
had  to  be  guarded  with  all  the  might  of 
the  members  to  keep  it  out  of  the  clutches 
of  Optimy  and  Pessimy.  He  tried  to  re- 
tract. Unfortunately,  Mr.  Brighton  was 
too  quick  for  him.  . 

"We  pay  a  price  for  India,  you  say? 
The  nation  wears  the  splendidest  jewel  in 
the  world  —  the  most  magnificent  that  ever 
stood  on  the  brow  of  any  kingdom!  And 
you  make  a  subject  of  universal  envy  a 
matter  of  lamentation." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "I  cau  prove  that  it  is 
matter  of  anxiety  to  those  who  use 
foresight." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''Why  do  your  weeping  be- 
fore a  tear  is  due?" 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "I  wam  you  that  we  are 
staking  our  very  existence  on  the  re- 
tention of  India.  Already,  in  almost 
every  home  in  the  kingdom  we  feel 
the  strain." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "We  may;  and  it  is  just  as 
certain  that  it  is  elevating  and  bracing 


14  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

us  to  perform  the  task  —  the  noblest 
ever  offered  to  a  body  of  men. 
India''  — 

"Please,"  Sir  Patrick  interposed, 
"confine  yourself  to  one  Presidency,  in 
charity  to  the  shortness  of  mortal  life. 
We  have  had  some  winds  recently,  Mr. 
Brighton." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Ay,  Sir  Patrick,  our  sea- 
manship has  been  worthy  of  its  repu- 
tation. It  is  hourly  on  trial,  and  as  I 
was  about  to  say  of  India,  the  magni- 
tude of  our  difficulty  and  the  incessant 
strain  conjures  up  resources  such  as  our 
sailors  show." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  agree  with  you.  We  learn 
from  misfortune.  I  saw  published  the 
other  day  the  letter  of  a  doctor,  who 
was  called  out  at  night  in  the  great 
gale,  and  he  observed  that  all  the  roofs 
in  exposed  situations  were  blown  off, 
except  the  thatched  ones." 

MR.  HELiON.  "The  counsel  to  roof  with 
thatch  will  be  found  in  Landor's  'Im- 
aginary   Conversation    between    Csesar 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  15 

and  Lucullus,'  published  1829,  and  not 
heeded  to  this  day." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "We  are  roofed  with  thatch 
in  India.  Let  but  one  spark  fall  on 
it!  one  will  be  quite  enough,  if  there 
should  happen  to  be  a  European  com- 
plication at  the  same  time." 

MR.  BRIGHTON,  "if  I  am  Walking  on  the  high 
road  at  night,  with  a  thousand  pounds 
jingling  in  my  pocket,  and  four-and- 
twenty  burglars  lining  the  way  in  the 
darkest  part  of  the  hedge,  let  but  one 
shot  be  fired,  it  will  be  enough  for 
me  —  out  goes  my  money." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "India  was  not  mentioned 
that  time.     Quick!  Sir  John." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Well,  I  can  tell  you  how  it  was 
our  prosperity  came  to  a  stop." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "It's  the  identical  reason  you 
have,  I  don't  doubt,  and  if  I  venture 
to  differ  it's  only  because  I'm  plagued 
eternally  with  a  private  opinion;  but, 
upon  my  conscience,  my  dear  Sir  John, 
since  it's  undeniable  we  became  ac- 
quainted   in    that    famous    short-lived 


16  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

institution,  I  can  say,  like  the  man 
that  was  blown  up,  and  rejoiced  he 
was  able  to  see  such  a  fine  lot  of 
country,  the  catastrophe  is  exceedingly 
much  to  my  profit." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''As  long  as  you  think  that,  Sir 
Patrick,  you  honour  and  make  me 
happy." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Put  the  cause  of  that  ca- 
tastrophe somewhere  betwixt  the  root 
of  the  tongue  and  the  tip.  There's 
nothing  creates  and  compresses  steam 
like  the  tongue,  and  we  let  it  wag  till 
it  fairly  cracked  us." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  say  we  came  to  grief  because 
we  did  not  dine  together,  and  we  sat 
beyond  midnight.  My  experience  is 
that  all  foolish  and  dangerous  stuff  is 
talked  after  twelve  at  night.  And  I 
am  convinced  that  to  talk  comfortably 
men  must  first  have  sat  at  table.  So, 
my  dear  good  friends,  I  offer  you  my 
table  in  town  and  country,  and  I 
merely  stipulate  that,  as  it  appears  to 
me  improper  and  unwise  to  go  on 
talking  into  the  next  day  —  you  know 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  17 

what  comes  of  it  in  the  members  of 
the  Greater  House  —  we  sit  up  to 
midnight  and  no  longer." 

Who  could  object?  None  did.  Sir 
John  Saxon  possessed  a  cook  —  never  mind 
of  what  country  —  a  cook  of  genius,  as 
you  will  know  when  you  have  partaken  of 
one  of  his  dinners:  and  it  is  notable  that 
men  after  leaning  to  or  passing  forty,  never 
complain  of  having  to  go  to  bed  upon  the 
stroke  of  midnight.  No  one  had  anything 
to  say  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Brighton, 
who  proposed,  in  consideration  of  their 
resolve  to  keep  civilised  hours,  that  they 
might  now  take  advantage  of  their  oppor- 
tunity to  show  a  bright  example  and  win 
a  great  benefit. 

But  here  Mr.  Helion  exclaimed  that 
he  heard  the  clock  strike. 

''We  have  sat  up  to  midnight,"  said 
Sir  John,  ''and  anything  now  proposed  or 
discussed  I  shall  hold  to  be  nonsense,  or 
worse.     Another  glass  of  claret,  Sir  Patrick." 

"The  pact  of  Bordeaux  with  you.  Sir 
John,"  replied  his  friend. 


II. 


The  Argument.  —  The  Proposed  Polar 
Expedition.  Polar  Madness.  La- 
bourer, Tenant,  and  Landlord.  Opti- 
my's  Conspiracy.  The  Hypocrisy 
of  Men,  and  Failure  of  a  First 
Experiment. 

DR.  ANTHONY,  with  his  host,  Sir 
John  Saxon,  and  Mr.  Helion,  took 
a  walk  after  breakfast,  leaving  Mr. 
M' Nimbus  in  the  library,  Mr.  Brighton 
and  Mr.  Finistare  to  court  the  children 
in  the  nursery,  and  Sir  Patrick  the  elderly 
ladies  in  the  drawing  room. 

"I  would  get  up  at  any  hour  this 
year  to  find  a  frost,"  said  Sir  John. 

''The  North  Pole  decidedly  wants 
doctoring,"  Mr.  Helion  observed. 

"Yes,  if  you  like,"  said  Dr.  Anthony, 
"but  whether  a  couple  of  whalers  of  Dun- 
dee can  do  it  is  another  question." 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  19 

MR.  HELiON.  ''Homoeopathic  doses  are  pop- 
ular." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Nothing  is  more  popular 
than  humbug." 

MR.  HELION.  "Luckily  Brighton  is  not  here 
to  hear  you." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Nor  my  daughters.  They  dose 
their  little  ones  every  other  night  with 
globules  and  tinctures,  after  a  mighty 
deal  of  consultation.  The  homoeo- 
pathic books  are  big,  whatever  the 
dose  may  be." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "  Trcatiscs  on  the  art  of  hood- 
winking the  human  race  cannot  be 
confined  in  a  narrow  compass." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Are  you  against  the  project  of 
a  fresh  polar  expedition?" 

THE  DOCTOR.  "I  dou't  say  that.  I  would 
rather  not  have  a  relative  on  board, 
and  I  prefer  not  to  risk  a  single  man 
of  the  British  navy.  But,  you  see, 
there  are  several  learned  societies  that 
have  an  instinct  of  its  being  to  the 
advantage  of  mankind,  and  as  we  have 


20  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

the  money,  I  think  we  are  bound  to 
pay  for  experunents." 

MR.  HELION.  "To  Satisfy  the  instincts  of 
learned  bodies?" 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Where  everything's  in  the 
dark,  we  have  nothing  else  than  in- 
stincts to  trust  to." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''I  object  to  my  poor  Hodge  and 
his  drudge  having  to  pay  one  penny 
towards  satisfying  the  instincts  of 
learned  bodies." 

MR.  HELION.  "That  is  part  of  the  prospect 
undoubtedly.  Say  that  the  bonnie 
Dundee  boats  are  stocked,  and  sail, 
and  that  they  discover  the  anthropo- 
logical people's  anthropeidesical  people, 
which  are  a  probably  anthropophagical 
people,  and  either  proceed  to  consume 
them  by  the  joint,  or  heighten  their 
gusto  by  boiling  them  down  for  oil. 
Our  instincts  become  excited  by  not 
hearing  of  them.  The  City  of  Marma- 
lade is  in  a  fever.  We  are  reproached; 
and  we  instinctively  turn  and  reproach 
the  Government,  and  the  Government 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  21 

stands  at  bay  until  the  voice  of  the 
learned  bodies  blows  through  the  popu- 
lar trumpets  deafeningly;  whereupon 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
washes  his  conscience  and  finds  a  hole 
in  his  pocket,  and  away  goes  the  van- 
guard of  the  British  navy  to  be  among 
ice-hummocks  on  active  service,  happy 
if  it  should  come  across  a  bone,  or  a 
bit  of  a  hat,  or  the  remnant  of  a 
frozen  expletive  pent  in  the  melan- 
choly Polar  air,  like  an  exiled  anatomy 
of  a  most  appealing  kind  —  just  to  re- 
mind the  honest  tars  that  their  broth- 
ers did  go  that  way  cursing  their  lot. 
And  for  that  expedition,  possibly  for 
another  to  follow,  poor  old  Hodge 
certainly  has  to  help  to  pay." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Hard  on  him!  Still  I  think 
we  ought  to  fight  the  Pole,  if  only  be- 
cause it  keeps  us  in  training." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Ah!  Let's  keep  in  training  by 
all  means.  I  suppose  a  pugilist's 
method  is  the  best  for  an  example;  he 


22  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

hits  at  a  bag  that  won't  crack  the 
knuckles." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Hunting  the  Pole  is  a  kind 
of  transmitted  Quixotry  among  sailors. 
It's  their  mystery  —  their  nut.  All 
who  have  been  to  the  Arctic  regions 
are  ready  to  go  again." 

MR.  HELioN.  ''I  heard  of  a  case  .  .  ." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "Don't  allude  to  it.  Liebig, 
pemmican,  have  put  that  out  of  the 
list  of  probabilities.  And  a  horror  like 
that  may  happen  in  a  wreck  on  the 
South  Pacific  as  well  as  in  Greenland. 
1  have  a  friend  who  is  a  genius  or  a 
fool  in  his  speculations  —  alwaj^s  danc- 
ing on  the  tight  rope  between  the  two; 
I  assure  you,  he  has  a  firm  belief  that 
we  shall  one  day  master  the  Pole  and 
command  the  elements." 

MR  HELION.  ''With  a  modest  hope  that  it 
may  all  come  to  pass  in  his  day,  I 
presume?  Men  of  that  sort  are  costly 
citizens.  Pursue  him  with  a  doctor's 
certificate  of  madness." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "He  would  take  refuge  in  one 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  23 

of  the  learned  societies,  and  claim 
rights  of  asylum  —  the  philosopher's 
benefit  of  clergy." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''Upon  my  soul,  the  madmen 
appear  to  have  got  half  the  business 
of  the  world  into  their  hands.  The 
knaves  manoeuvre  them,  and  the  don- 
keys and  the  cowards  are  their  tools 
and  their  prey.  Look  at  those  cot- 
tages. Aren't  they  comfortable?  I 
could  live  in  one  of  them  myself  with 
pleasure  —  glad  to  get  away  from  my 
servants.  Considering  the  price  of 
provisions,  I  raised  my  labourers' 
wages.  Well,  up  starts  an  agitator. 
They  had  nothing  to  complain  of,  but 
out  they  went  to  him.  They  wanted 
to  have  a  general  rise!" 

MR.  HELiON.  ''Aha!  That's  a  new  feature 
in  Hodge's  character  —  there's  an  idea 
in  that." 

SIR  JOHN.  "What?" 

MR.  HELION.  "His  malady  has  been  the 
total  absence  of  agitation  in  his  sys- 
tem for  I   don't  know  how  long.     It 


24  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

seems  that  he  can  think  of  others  be- 
side himself,  then.  He's  beginning  to 
use  his  wits;  the  old  fellow  is  abso- 
lutely a  little  fore-thoughtful." 

siK  JOHN.  "You  writers  treat  every  diffi- 
culty we  have  to  contend  with  as  a 
pot  to  light  a  fire  under.  I  call  my 
property  my  own.  The  tenants  on  my 
estates  —  I  do  things  now  I  never 
thought  of  doing  when  I  was  a  young 
man  —  they  come  to  terms  with  me;  I 
don't  force  them  to  farm  my  ground; 
I  indemnify  them  liberally  for  my  pre- 
serves; and  they  have  fair  leases.  If 
they  don't  pay  their  men  well,  is  it 
my  fault?  But  if  they  don't,  and 
they're  left  in  the  lurch  by  a  strike, 
and  are  beaten,  by-and-by  it  falls  upon 
me." 

MR.  HELiON.  "The  subject  is  not  one  of 
mine  specially.  But  conceive  that  the 
labourer  should  become  a  better  article; 
■  fancy  his  putting  spirit  —  agitation  into 
his  work,  getting  tolerably  independent, 
holding  his  head  up,  taking  a  pride  in 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  25 

himself;  wouldn't  his  work  be  about 
twice  its  present  value?  The  price  of 
land  has  doubled,  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  price  of  labour  insists  upon 
rising  as  a  matter  of  course.  I  want 
to  see  a  strong,  provident,  self-respect- 
ing fellow,  instead  of  a  bowed,  rheu- 
matic, reckless  propagator,  whose  bright 
ideal  is  beer;  and  I  think  it  unfair  that, 
such  as  he  is,  his  strength  —  which  is 
about  one-fourth  of  what  it  might  be 
—  should  be  sucked  out  of  him,  and 
the  poor  creature  then  tossed  to  the 
country  for  subsistence  and  burial." 

SIR  JOHN.  "By  George!" 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''You  Were  speaking  of  the 
weather.  Sir  John." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Was  I?  When  was  I?  I 
tell  you  those  cottages  are  a  sight  to 
see  in  summer.  My  daughter  Mary 
went  down  to  one  of  them  last  year 
for  a  shp  of  a  creeping  rose.  The 
fronts  are  covered  with  honeysuckle 
and  jessamine,  clematis  over  the 
porches,     and    a    half-dozen    standard 


26  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

roses  in  the  gardens.  You'd  strip  the 
landlords  till  you  had  'em  bare! 
Weather?  the  whole  country's  rolled 
in  a  wet  blanket.  The  only  pity  is 
that  some  fellow  didn't  prophecy  it." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "True,  Sir  Johxi,  capital!  "We 
should  have  had  the  consolation  of 
boasting  of  something,  in  that  case. 
Here  comes  Sir  Patrick." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''The  fact  is,  Helion  is  one  of 
those  dreamers  who  ought  to  have  it 
proved  on  'em  they're  gabbling 
incendiaries." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''By  our  rules  we  speak  out, 
though  the  hearer  suffer  fiendish 
torture." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  suffer?" 

THE  DOCTOR.  "I'll  trouble  you  for  a  com- 
posing draught,  Sir  Patrick." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "I  bring  whisper  of  a  con- 
spiracy. Brighton  has  emboldened  the 
ladies,  and  the  ladies  have  captured 
Finistare,  and  deuce  a  bit  of  sitting 
do  we  get  tonight.     I  lament  the  loss 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  27 

to  you  of  your  after-dinner  cigar,  Mr. 
Helion." 

MR.  HELiON.  "I  had  a  particularly  fine  one 
to  offer  you." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''It  might  be  managed." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Ay,  but  I  charge  you  with 
being  a  member  of  the  conspiracy." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Pooh,  Diplomacy.  We're  to 
be  dragged  away  from  the  claret  to 
the  drawing  room  and  music,  and  sit 
at  that  up  to  midnight.  My  counsel 
is,  if  we  can't  circumvent,  not  to  re- 
sist, and  they'll  never  repeat  the 
spectacle  twice." 

SIR  JOHN.  "We've  entered  the  Christmas 
week,  and  Christmas  Eve  and  Christ- 
mas Day  don't  belong  to  us.  And  I 
don't  have  my  girls  about  me  every 
day.  The  worst  is,  they  will  bring 
their  husbands  with  them  —  I  mean, 
for  any  chance  of  our  sitting  in  priv- 
ate. Lord  help  us!  The  fun  of  the 
young  is  purgatory  to  their  elders." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Hehon,  my  dear  boy,  smok- 
ing's  a  barbarous  habit." 


28  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

MR.  HELiON.  ''It's  distinctly  counselled  by 
wise  men  that  with  the  advance  of 
civilisation  we  be  on  our  guard  not 
to  relinquish  the  virtues  of  the 
barbarians." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "That's  admirable  as  it  is 
sententious  —  to  speak  in  the  compact 
style,  like  your  critics.     But  the  cigar?" 

MR.  HELION.  "We  m\.st  postpone  it  till 
we're  released  ' 

SIR  PATRICK.  "The    claret's    a    clear    sacri- 
fice!    It's  gone,  and  we  can't  recall  it. 
It's  what  they  call  an  oblation  to  the 
ladies  —  with     just     the     comfort     of 
knowing  it  remains  in  bottle!" 

No  indication  of  Mr.  Brighton's  plot 
was  seen  before  the  claret  had  performed 
its  round.  Sir  John's  youngest  daughter 
then  said  to  him,  "Papa,  we're  going  to 
begin  tonight  to  take  you  with  us,  for  if 
we  don't  we  shal)  never  see  anything  of 
you  after  dinner  this  week,  and  it  is  a  verj^ 
bad  example  to  young  men,  and  this  week 
is  ours." 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  29 

"All  the  weeks  are  yours  if  you  will 
only  condescend  to  claim  them,"  said  Mr. 
Brighton,  rising. 

There  was  some  stumbling  before  the 
commencement  of  the  triumphant  march 
upstairs,  in  consequence  of  the  hospitable 
old  baronet's  anxiety  lest  his  guests  should 
not  have  had  wine  enough.  Wine,  how- 
ever, was  totally  declined;  by  none  more 
loudly  than  by  Sir  Patrick. 

"I  don't  know  why  we've  come  up," 
Sir  John  observed,  after  staring  about  the 
room  and  resigning  himself  to  a  drowsy 
chair. 

''If  it's  to  share  the  dulness  of  the 
ladies  it's  a  very  sure  object,"  murmured 
Mr.  M'Nimbus,  whose  claret  had  really 
been  recommended  to  him  by  a  physician, 
and  was,  therefore,  due  to  his  bodily  state. 

"  Brighton's  trick,  it  seems,"  Sir  John 
tried  to  explain  their  common  mishap  to 
him. 

''Brighton,"  said  Mr.  M'Nimbus,  "is  a 
genius  to  plant  us  in  such  a  perfect  picture 


30  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

of  the  revolutionary  condition  of  the  age 
and  all  at  one  stroke." 

No  conversation  was  to  be  obtained 
from  Mr.  M'Nimbus.  Sir  John  called  for 
music,  in  the  tone  of  a  footman  announc- 
ing a  guest.  Only  four  ladies  were  present. 
Two  went  to  the  piano.  After  their  per- 
foimance  Mr.  Brighton  and  Mr.  Finistare, 
Sir  Patrick  and  Mr.  Helion,  were  invited 
to  sing.  Of  these,  Mr.  Finistare  was  per- 
suaded to  the  attempt,  and  in  a  deep  and 
hollow  voice,  as  if  it  were  a  report  of 
strange  doings  in  a  tunnel,  he  committed 
his  offence.  The  ladies  thanked  him. 
Again  they  played.  Sir  John  was  asleep. 
Mr.  M'Nimbus  had  fastened  himself  to  an 
illustrated  book.  Sir  Patrick  was  entangled 
in  the  game  of  chess  with  a  serious  antago- 
nist in  a  cap. 

''Ah!  you  have  begun  badly,"  Mr. 
Helion  said  to  Miss  Annie  Saxon,  "you 
should  have  tried  us  at  our  amusement, 
and  begun  by  talking,  which  you  do  quite 
as  well  as  we,  to  say  the  least;  and  we 
should  have  acknowledged  it.     You  would 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  31 

have  engaged  us  all,  instead  of  leaving  it 
to  our  opinion  to  go  to  sleep  or  play  chess 
in  a  corner.  This  comes  of  following  an 
enthusiast." 

"  Would  there  ever  be  an  impulse  to 
anything  without  the  enthusiast?"  said 
Miss  Annie.  ''Mr.  Brighton  is  faithful  to 
us.  I  wish  I  could  say  it  of  you  and  Sir 
Patrick." 

"I?  my  dear  lady!"  cried  Sir  Patrick, 
starting  up  as  high  as  deference  to  his 
severe  adversary  would  permit.  ''Is  there 
a  duty  more  urgent  than  the  one  I'm 
doing?" 

The  lady  laughed  and  said  to  Mr. 
Helion,  "Would  he  ever  have  made  that 
blunder  if  he  had  not  been  suffering 
dreadfully?" 

Mr.  Helion  threw  over  Sir  Patrick 
with  a  treacherous  shrug. 

Music  abandoned,  coffee  and  tea  hav- 
ing served  their  turn,  conversation  was 
tried,  but  as  there  was  no  guard  (the 
Doctor  was  listening  to  the  "symptoms"  of 
the  spinster  sister  of  Sir  John  in  a  corner 


32  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

at  an  angle  with  Sir  Patrick),  it  became 
without  an  instant's  deviation  the  prey  of 
Optimy  and  Pessimy. 

Miss  Saxon  looked  up  at  the  clock. 
"Do  you  ever  yawn  in  your  conferences 
and  wonder  when  it  is  going  to  be  twelve 
o'clock?"  she  asked. 

''We  always  find  it  comes  too  soon," 
replied  the  simple  Helion,  unmasking  the 
hypocrite  as  blandly  as  Sir  Patrick  had 
done. 

The  lady  all  but  looked  — "Oh!  dear, 
what  creatures  men  are." 

"You  are  released,"  she  exclaimed. 
"We  said  we  would  keep  you  up  to  mid- 
night, and  I  am  sure  I  do  not  wish  to 
detain  you  any  longer." 

"Allow  me  to  assure  you,  Miss  Saxon," 
said  Mr.  M'Nimbus,  "that  in  my  opinion 
we  have  passed  a  purely  representative 
evening  of  a  time  when  everything's  in  a 
state  of  transition,  and  old  customs  are 
abjured  without  new  being  formed,  and 
respectable  prejudices  are  exposed  to  the 
ridicule  of  the  imp  of  newfangle,  and  ex- 
periment's  the  rule,   and  failure's   not   the 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  33 

exception,  and  rights  are  claimed  which 
people  have  no  capacity  for  exercising — " 

''If  my  sex  is  being  abused,  I  am  not 
obhged  to  listen,"  said  the  lady.  "You 
will  write  us  a  Christmas  song,  Mr.  Helion?" 

"Pudding  is  too  weighty  a  topic  for 
song,"  said  that  gentleman,  "and  it  is  not 
relieved  by  beef,  or  by  turkey." 

"Will  you  not  grasp  the  spirit  of  the 
season?"  said  she. 

"It  has  been  done.  Believe  me,  it 
won't  bear  repetition,"  said  he. 

"Ay!  we  shall  have  dancing  to  look  on 
at  tomorrow  and  next  day,"  Sir  John  sighed. 

"Well,  papa,  I  will  say  for  you,  you 
never  pretended  to  be  pleased,"  said  Miss 
Saxon.     "Sir  Patrick  ..." 

"Sir  Patrick,  my  dear  young  lady,  has 
never,"  quoth  he  of  the  name,  "said  worse 
of  your  sex  than  that  we  men  may  now 
and  then  do  with  advantage  what  a  painter 
does  before  his  picture  —  step  to  a  slight 
distance,  you  know,  back  away  from  it  just 
to  take  a  mental  draught  of  the  harmony 
and  splendour  of  its  proportions." 


III. 


The  Argument.  —  A  Review  of  the 
year:  The  Weather.  Southwest 
Winds.  Extraordinary  Fact  in 
Irish  History.  Mr.  Froude  in 
America.  Mr.  Mundella  at  Mer- 
thyr.  France  and  Mr.  Thiers. 
Bismarck.  Germany  and  the  Gam- 
ing Tables.  Stanley  and  Living- 
stone.    The  Geneva  Arbitration. 

In  that  hour  which  resembles  the  fam- 
ous admonitory  engravings  of  the  human 
figure  half  in  bloom,  half  laid  bare  by 
death,  when  the  Old  Year  is  about  to  make 
way  for  his  posthumous  son,  he  is  still  the 
most  important  person  of  the  two,  though 
no  more  can  be  hoped  from  him.  The 
party  sitting  "  Up  to  Midnight  "  discussed  his 
deeds. 

''We  have  had  an  entire  autumn,  and 
a  portion  of  winter,  of  warm,  soft,  blubbery 
gales,"    said    Mr.    M'Nimbus.     ''We    have 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT  35 

been  stewed  in  a  sort  of  draughty  South 
Africa,  and  blown  on  by  a  flaccid  sirocco, 
and  drenched  from  morning  to  night;  and 
this  is  your  boasted  climate  south  of  the 
Tweed!  It  saps  bricks  and  mortar,  and  it 
takes  the  cement  out  of  me.  It's  like  the 
times  —  a  game  of  revolution  and  upset- 
ting, a  wrecking  and  a  flooding:  the  sea- 
sons topsy-turvy,  for  their  part,  and  the 
political  pediment  trying  to  stand  on  its 
apex,  for  its  part." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "No  description  could  be 
truer  or  sadder!  The  farmers  appre- 
hend a  period  of  something  like  famine. 
Their  only  consolation  —  if  it  can  be 
called  one  —  is  that  it  will  teach  a 
lesson  to  the  labourers." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Nonsense.  We've  had  south- 
westers  from  the  autumn  right  on  to 
the  middle  of  spring,  and  no  famine 
came  of  them.  Generally  they  were 
found  to  have  done  good.  The  farm- 
ers don't  drain  their  land,  and  don't 
husband  the  rainfall.     Read  Mr.  Bailey 


36  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Denton's  letter  in  the  Times.  There 
you  have  sound  sense.  The  farmers 
are  inveterate  waiters  upon  Providence. 
If  we  hadn't  produced  the  grandest 
farmers  and  breeders  in  the  world,  I'd 
call  them  a  pack  of  asses." 

MR.  HELiON.  "When  the  southwest  blows 
it  is  sununer  in  England,  and,  I  con- 
fess, I  prefer  it.  I  was  not  born 
braced  like  the  '  Children  of  the  Mist,' 
who  seem  to  be  undone  before  the 
steam  of  a  teapot." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''They  may  suspect  your 
beverage  is  not  man's  natural  drink, 
but  the  very  reverse  of  it." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''According  to  the  old  calen- 
dars the  average  gives  us  seven  months 
of  southwest  wind  per  annum  for  Eng- 
land." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "For  Ireland,  say  nine.  And 
it's  the  reason  why  whisky's  not  wat- 
ered by  art  over  there,  seeing  that 
nature  does  it  uninvited." 

SIR  JOHN.  "When  the  elements  go  to  any 
of  their  excesses,  pray  for  the  wit  to 


UP   TO   MIDNIGHT  37 

profit  by  them;  that's  my  creed  in  all 
things  palpable." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "  You  are  right,  Sir  John, 
and  I  am  glad  to  see  you  subscribe  to 
one  of  the  mottoes  of  the  great  Pro- 
gressive party  —  '  Brains  to  the 
rescue.'  " 

SIR  JOHN.  ''How?  Be  hanged  if  I  sub- 
scribe to  any  of  their  mottoes,  or  their 
begging-hsts;  and  I  don't  beUeve  in 
their  having  brains  to  rescue  us  or 
themselves  from  the  messes  they  get 
us  into:  if  they  had,  they'd  be  villains 
past  help  of  a  shrift.  But,  now,  tell 
me,  what  do  you  think  the  chief  event 
of  the  year?" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "The  chief,  for  one  thing  — 
to  speak  with  the  pardonable  pride  of 
a  man  enamoured  of  his  nationality  — 
is  a  march  we  made  in  our  island  with 
a  banner  and  a  song,  and  the  march- 
ing party  marched,  and  the  opposite 
party  looked  on  —  and  that's  the 
whole  history  of  the  affair,  as  I  live!" 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Notable     indeed.       But     it 


38  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

would  be  below  the  dignity  of  such 
an  event  to  record  it  as  merely  one  of 
the  year's  occurrences  —  it  is  an  epoch 
in  civilisation." 

MR.  HELiON.  ''But  it  gives  the  year  a 
properly  imposing  aspect  to  chronicle 
the  fact  that  heads  were  not  cracked 
on  a  certain  occasion  in  Ireland  in  the 
year  of  Grace,  1872." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "It  throws  a  promising  light 
on  the  years  to  come." 

MR  FiNiSTARE.  ''An  Unenviable  reflection 
on  the  years  preceding." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Or  you  may  consider  the 
circumstance  an  evidence  of  the  sad 
decay  of  that  ardent  spirit  of  investi- 
gation which  has  for  so  many  centur- 
ies urged  the  Irishman  to  solicit  ocular 
demonstration  of  the  existence  and 
substantiality  of  his  brother  Irishman's 
brains." 

MR.  HELION.  "Binocular  —  quadrocular 
demonstration!  You  forget  the  qual- 
ity of  the  ardent  spirit." 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  39 

SIR  PATRICK.  "No  fear  of  a  pistol,  gentle- 
men!   Go  on." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  congratulate  you  with  all  my 
heart,  Sir  Patrick,  on  the  matter  you 
mention.  There  is  Mr.  Froude  in 
America,  now.  I  like  his  gallantry. 
I'd  swear  he  went  on  a  good  impulse." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "With  a  whip  in  his  hand? 
to  find  the  brains  of  the  Irish  emigrant 
and  his  spiritual  father?  It's  the  last 
of  instruments  for  raising  anything  but 
a  howl." 

SIR  JOHN.  "He  doesn't  mince  the  truth  for 
either  of  us.  The  claret  is  with  you, 
by  the  way." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "An  ancestor  of  mine,  good 
Sir  Ulick  Dalcassian,  called  out  the 
host  who  reminded  him  of  the  mis- 
demeanour of  letting  the  claret  stand; 
for,  says  he,  'tis  worse  than  a  common 
charge  of  murder,  which  is  stopping 
the  circulation  of  but  one  man,  and 
I'm  accused  of  doing  that  for  a  table 
of  twelve  —  as  bad  as  the  slaughter  of 


40  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

a  jury!  Toll  your  head,  Mr.  Finistare, 
the  tale  is  true." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''And  pray,  which  was  the 
survivor  of  that  memorable  duel?" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Myself,  to  be  sure,  or  you'd 
never  have  seen  me  here." 

MR.  HELiON.  "You  applaud  Mr.  Froude, 
Sir  John.  What  do  you  say  to  Mr. 
Mundella  at  Merthyr?" 

SIR  JOHN.  "This  Trades'  Unionism  is  a 
conspiracy  that  wants  a  front  to  meet 
it;  none  of  your  coddlers  and  wheezy 
go-betweens!  Oh!  the  man  meant  well, 
I  suppose;  but  you  fellows  blow  the 
fire  hot  and  then  try  to  blow  it  cold, 
and  it  won't  do." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "To  me  Trades'  Unionb 
signify  a  capacity  for  expansion  with- 
out causing  explosion.  They  are  symp- 
toms of  growth,  and  show  the  country 
breathing  from  a  healthy  deep  chest. 
They  are  proofs  of  our  vitality  and 
guarantees  of  our  security." 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "  The  gas  stokcrs  have  given 
you    an    indication   of   what    they    are 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  41 

likely  to  be.  I  fear  too  surely  they 
signify  the  coming  of  a  period  of  total 
obscuration  —  the  darker  middle  ages 
anticipated  by  Niebuhr,  the  reign  of 
the  brutish  many,  the  reign  of  ignor- 
ance; the  decay  of  art  and  whatsoever 
has  hitherto  made  nations  glorious  and 
raised  man  above  the  animal." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Not  without  a  fight  for  it." 

MR.  HELioN.  ''You  have  seen  the  best  way 
of  fighting  it  at  Merthyr  the  other 
day." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''Well,  they're  no  better  off  on 
the  Continent.  Lord  forbid  that  I 
should  wish  them  not  to  be!  Poor 
France,  too!" 

THE  DOCTOR.  "Come,  she  has  no  reason  to 
complain  of  the  year.  She  has  raised 
a  miraculous  loan." 

MR.  FiNiSTAiRE.  "Without  providing  the 
means  of  paying  the  interest  on  it." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Noue  doubt  that  she'll  do 
that.  She  met  her  engagements  honour- 
ably  after   disasters   that   would   have 


42  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

made  almost  any  other  nation  take  a 
pride  in  bankruptcy." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''Who's  the  'she'  you  speak  of? 
Shef  It's  a  '/ie'  if  you  make  out 
France  to  be  a  person." 

MR.  HELioN.  "In  fact,  it  really  is  Thiers  at 
present.  She  still  looks  to  a  he  for 
deliverance,  and  he  has  done,  on  the 
whole,  remarkably  well.  You  see,  he 
has  a  cracked  instrument  to  perform 
upon.  While  playing  he  must  be 
mending  and  tuning." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Paganini's  nothing  to  him!" 

MR.  HELION.  "Admit  that  his  bowing  is 
superb;  it  is  not  his  fault  if  the  fiddle 
rumbles  and  squeaks." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Don't  run  your  metaphor  to 
death." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Do,   for  posterity's  sake!" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "D'ye  think  the  little  man  in 
earnest  about  his  Republic?" 

MR.  HELION.  "He  foresees  the  certainty  of 
a  king  or  an  emperor  being  hurried 
prematurely  into  the  Alsace-Lorraine 
struggle  —  the    great     epic    of    future 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT  43 

French  history.  The  Republic  can 
wait  for  its  time.  No  individual  ruler 
could.  Whenever  his  reputation,  his 
popularity,  or  what  you  will,  began  to 
wane,  Alsace-Lorraine  would  be  whis- 
pering at  his  pillow,  until  he  would 
actually  see,  as  clearly  as  Macbeth  his 
dagger,  the  alternative  of  the  march 
eastward,  or  personal  ruin.  Remember 
that  there  is  in  France  a  thirst  to 
strike  a  blow,  if  only  to  vindicate  the 
national  valour." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "There  is  common  sense  in 
France  in  spite  of  all  that." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "French  common  sense  al- 
ways seems  to  be  playing  like  the  por- 
poise, and  exhibiting  a  lively,  a 
rounded,  and  a  glistening  spine  as  it 
rolls  over  and  over;  but  you  never  see 
it  when  you  require  it,  and  it  won't 
come  to  a  call." 

MR.  HELiON.  "Irish  common  sense,  you 
mean?" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "I  said  French;  and  I  should 
be  sorry  to  correct  your  hearing  in  the 


44  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

good  ancient  fashion,  common  in 
schools,  when  my  state  demanded  a 
teacher  with  a  ready  hand,  and  a 
swing  to  it." 

MR.  HELiON.  ''Sir  Patrick,  our  rules  pro- 
hibit the  taking  of  offence." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "None  is  possible  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Sir  John's  haul  hrion.'' 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  shan't  endanger  my  life  a 
second  time  by  asking  you  to  pass  it 
on.  By  the  way,  you  don't  take  to 
my  hock," 

SIR  PATRICK.  "I  can  see  the  merit  of  hock, 
but  can't  discover  in  my  system  what 
it  appeals  to,  nor  the  makers  of  hock 
either." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "It  is  the  habit  of  Germans 
to  appeal  to  men's  heads. ^' 

SIR  PATRICK.  "The  stick  they  employ  is 
unhandsomely  thick." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "They  measure  it  by  the 
skull  they  address  it  to." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "It  is  a  kindness,  and  proves 
them  to  be  methodical  men  of  im- 
pulse." 


UP   TO   MIDNIGHT  45 

siK  JOHN.  "I  wish  no  harm  to  the  Ger- 
mans. Wherever  they  go  they're  good 
citizens,  and  that's  the  highest  praise 
for  a  race,  in  my  opinion.  All  I  know 
is  that  Bismarck  has  bled  France,  and 
France  has  borrowed  of  us  to  such  a 
degree  that  he  acts  on  the  precious 
metal  like  the  Unknown  Power  on  the 
weather:  we  have  to  watch  him  like  a 
barometer." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''True.  If  the  fork  of  his  tail 
begins  to  redden  and  curl  up  his  leg, 
we're  in  a  fume.  If  he  scratches  the 
point  of  his  ear,  we  ask  if  it's  time  to 
be  shrieking." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''Stock  Exchange  specula- 
tors may  find  themselves  doing  some- 
thing like  that;  but  there's  no  reason 
for  the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  much 
disturbed." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''Sir  John  compares  him  to 
the  Unknown  Power,  my  friend;  and 
what's  the  Unknown  Power  that  plays 
on  the  precious  metal  but  the  poodle 
that  appeared  before  Faust,  and  is  just 


46  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

now  operating  like  a  Jew  and  an 
alchemist  by  turns,  in  flashes,  nipping 
your  gold,  and  again  coining  it  out  of 
nothing,  till  the  double  rascal  stands 
in  the  middle  of  us,  like  the  peg  of  a 
rope,  and  all  Europe  spinning  round 
and  round  him  in  a  vertigo?  That's 
Bismarck." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Germany  deserves  well  of 
the  world  this  year,  if  only  for  sup- 
pressing the   infamous   gaming-tables." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "They  will  spring  up  else- 
where!" 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "At  any  rate  Germany  has 
purified  her  soil  of  the  stain." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "  Poor  Homburg!  and  pretty 
Baden-Baden!  Worthy  men  of  my 
profession  have  found  comfortable  in- 
comes there." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Humph!  Other  professors  have 
found  incomes  there.  We  complain  of 
the  settled  outcome  there  used  to  be 
there.  German  ingenuity  will  be  taxed 
to  keep  up  the  amusements  in  those 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  47 

places,  and  I  should  like  to  hear  of  the 
result.     What  games  will  they  invent?" 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''Feats  of  German  agility  on 
a  grand  scale!  A  selection  of  German 
sceptics  arguing!  Fifty  German  pro- 
fessors engaged  in  excited  dialectics 
through  as  many  as  fifty  trombones! 
''  There'll  be  the  future  amusements 
offered  at  Homburg  and  Baden-Baden. 
Indeed,  I  like  the  idea.  And  the  loud- 
est professor  I'd  promote  to  the  big 
drum." 

MR.  HELiON.  "I  would  Compel  all  dogma- 
tists to  deliver  themselves  through  the 
trombone." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "Upon  my  word,  Sir  Patrick, 
the  show  would  be  very  attractive." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "For  one  visit.  Doctor.  You 
wouldn't  see  the  same  faces  there 
again." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''We  have  been  beaten  by 
an  American  this  year." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "  You  allude  to  Bancroft?" 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "I   allude  to  Stanley." 


48  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Eh,  it  was  from  Bancroft 
we  had  our  thrashing." 

MR.  HELTON.  ''As  Well  Say  it  was  from  the 
trigger  you  received  your  shot.  Amer- 
ica was  nearer  British  Columbia  than 
you,  and  she  knew  what  she  wanted 
long  before  you  did.  Gold  was  dis- 
covered, and  you  then  thought  your 
possession  important.  America  recruits 
her  diplomatic  ranks  from  among  men 
distinguished  in  literature.  You  get 
yours  you  know  where.  So  America 
expressed  herself  distinctly,  and  you 
did  not.  And  you  pay  for  it.  You 
have  the  article  you  want,  I  suppose  — 
well-born  men  to  represent  you  abroad; 
and  if  you  have  to  pay  for  them  in  an 
island  or  two,  and  the  loss  of  command 
of  a  channel,  you  are  rich  enough  to 
pay." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''I  was  Speaking  of  Stanley. 
We  made  amends  to  him  for  a  certain 
coldness.  ..." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''Amends,  do  you  say?  Sir, 
we  implored  him  not  to  be  angry  with 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  49 

as,  to  convey  home  to  his  immense  and 
powerful  continent  a  bosom  cherishing 
wrath.  And  that's  what  we've  been 
doing  with  all  Americans.  For  my 
part,  I  would  be  willing  to  see  them 
some  hundreds  of  years  hence,  and  not 
before." 

ME.  BRIGHTON.  ''I  maintain  that  Stanley's 
expedition  was  worthy  of  the  heroic 
spirit  of  enterprise  of  his  noble  coun- 
try." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Worthy  to  be  recorded  in 
his  noble  country  heroic  oratory." 

MR.  HELION.  "The  achievement  in  archery 
was  for  one  bowman  to  hit  the  mark 
and  the  other  to  split  his  arrow.  Liv- 
ingstone hit  Africa  and  Stanley,  Living- 
stone. Will  that  satisfy  you,  Brigh- 
ton?" 

THE  DOCTOR.  "  My  father  Hcked  all  creation, 
and  I  hcked  him." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "I  kuow  that  in  your  hearts 
you  do  justice  to  Stanley,  and  to  the 
man  who  sent  him." 


50  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

MR.  HELiON.  "Yes;  but  you  and  your 
friends  have  been  overdoing  it,  as 
usual.  Bates,  again!  You  gave  the 
signal  to  the  public  to  set  the  kettle  of 
cajolery  boiling,  and  we  went  in  for 
another  maundering  fit  about  our 
'cousins.'  They  naturally  ask  them- 
selves, What  can  you  possibly  think  of 
them  if  you  think  they  like  it?  and 
they  attribute  your  proceedings  to  a 
mixture  of  contempt  and  fear." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Their  own  cousinly  senti- 
ments are  written  plainly  in  the  docu- 
ments submitted  by  them  to  the 
Council  of  the  Geneva  Arbitration." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "You  have  no  warrant  for 
saying  so.     The  Alabama — " 

SIR  JOHN.  "  I  think  I  hear  the  bel's!" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "I  salute  them  for  saving  us 
from  an  enforced  cruise  in  that  phan- 
tom ship.  If  payment  of  three  millions 
and  more  will  not  exercise  her,  we're 
haunted  till  the  Continent  swallows  the 
island." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "One    moment.     I    have    a 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  51 

word  to  say  upon  the  Geneva  Arbitra- 
tion." 

ME.  FiNiSTARE.  "  Our  enemy  has  smitten  us 
upon  our  right  cheek  and  we  have  offered 
him  our  left." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''We  turned  away  from  him 
in  grief,  and  he  precipitated  our 
departure." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''The  questiou  is  this — " 

MR.  HELiON.  "Are  those  bells  musical  or 
not?" 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Are  we  EngUsh  above  or 
below  our  professions?  Have  we 
reached  a  point  where  we  can  con- 
ceive the  right  thing  to  do  for  the 
good  of  humanity,  without  yet  having 
our  natures  possessed  by  the  spirit  of 
the  thing?  After  giving  a  pre-eminent 
example,  are  we  ashamed  to  wrap  our- 
selves in  our  own  virtues?  Or  do  we 
find  the  robes  too  scant?  The  prin- 
ciple—  " 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Spare  us  the  'principle.'  " 

SIR  JOHN.  "I'm  afraid  we  can't  have  the 
'principle.'  " 


52  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Eh?  the  principle?  It's 
the  voice  of  the  metaphysics  of  poUtics. 
It's  the  fiction  his  party  Uves  on,  and 
the  formula  it  strikes  us  to  the  earth 
with." 

MR.  HELiON.  "My  dear  Brighton,  stop! 
Let  a  man  of  no  party  tell  you  that 
you  are  exactly  in  the  condition  of 
yours  at  this  instant  —  you  are  too 
late  for  the  midnight,  and  too  early 
for  the  morning." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "On  the  next  occasion — " 

THE  DOCTOR.  "That's  equivalent  to  a 
threat." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  will  not  be  threatened! 
There's  no  mistake  about  the  bells 
now.  We're  in  1873.  Your  hands, 
gentlemen,     and     good     night." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "  Is  it  the  creduUty  of 
human  nature,  or  the  farce  we  insist 
upon  playing,  which  makes  us  begin 
the  New  Year  with  every  symptom  of 

joy?" 
MR.  BRIGHTON.    "I     dou't     kuow     at     all, 
but  I  hear  the  piano  in  the  drawing 


UP   TO   MIDNIGHT  53 

room,  where  nonsense  of  that  kind  is 
never  broached,  and  I  shall  go  there. 
Come,  Helion!" 

MR.  HELION.  ''I  fancy  some  of  the  little 
ones  have  been  kept  up  to  dance  the 
New  Year  in.     I'll  come." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''And  I,  for  we  must  keep  a 
watch  on  Optimy.  Pessimy  merely 
effects  the  coloration  of  the  mind,  but 
Optimy  aims  at  hurrying  mind  and 
body  on  a  locomotive,  and  if  he  will 
mount  the  ladies  on  that  engine  our 
fiddle  has  sounded  its  last." 


IV. 

The  Argument.  —  Prospects  of  the 
Year  to  Come.  Gloomy  Views  of 
Mr.  Finistare.  Recurrence  of  the 
Duel  between  Optimy  and  Pessimy. 
Singular  Conduct  of  a  Sailor.  Il- 
lustrations of  Force,  Jupiter,  Prome- 
theus, and  the  Plan  of  Humpty- 
Dumpty.  Picture  of  a  Prosperous 
Ireland  in  Attachment.  The  Prus- 
sian Model.  Notices  of  Future 
Subjects. 

Another  rise  of  the  river  flowing  under 
his  lawn,  and  a  spread  of  the  freshet,  kept 
Sir  John  Saxon  in  active  occupation  among 
his  dependents.  In  this  condition  he  dis- 
covered that  conversation  with  friends  is  a 
specific  for  the  diversion  of  thought,  which 
will  otherwise  brood  upon  disasters  Uke  a 
cloud  in  the  mind,  and  he  begged  them  to 
stay  with  him  yet  a  while,  and  help  build 
an  ark  if  there  should  be  occasion  for  it. 
His  philosophical  composure  was  troubled. 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  55 

Burgundy  was  substituted  for  claret  on  the 
table.  He  had  to  be  reminded  by  Mr. 
Brighton  that  he  had  said  our  principal 
concern  and  prayer  was  to  learn  to  profit 
by  the  excesses  of  the  elements.  ''Tell 
that  to  a  shipwrecked  sailor  clinging  to  the 
rigging  in  a  gulf  of  the  sea!"  he  remarked. 
The  tone  of  despondency  roused  Mr. 
Finistare,  as  a  dark  bird  of  the  fens  is 
moved  to  clap  his  wings  and  soar  by  the 
traveller's  footsteps.  He  delivered  him- 
self: "Ah!  there's  an  end  of  our  false  con- 
ceits when  the  tremendous  forces  of  nature 
are  let  loose  on  us.  We  have  to  cast  them 
off  like  a  man  that  must  swim  for  his  life. 
The  state  of  society  at  present  is  a  reflex 
of  the  disorderly  elements.  We  have  a 
deluge  of  pauperism  and  ruffianism:  we 
cannot  make  head  against  the  prevailing 
vice  and  crime.  Look  at  the  newspapers 
in  their  right  colours,  their  columns  are 
streaming  with  blood." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''Dear!  dear!" 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "Am  I  guilty  of  exaggera- 


56  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

tion?  I  am  aware  that  I  take  the  un- 
popular course  when  I  attempt  to  make 
you  reaUse  our  position.  The  apology 
of  drunkenness  for  manslaughter  is  a 
thing  of  daily  occurrence.  What  are 
you  doing  to  stop  the  drunken  frenzy?" 

SIR  JOHN.  ''Now,  don't  ask  me  to  support 
the  Permissive  Bill,  Finistare.    I  won't." 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "That  obsequious  invita- 
tion to  the  poor  to  look  to  the  welfare 
of  their  bodies  and  souls,  called  Tee- 
totalism,  has  failed.  They  must  be 
driven  in  herds.  You  must  compel 
them  to  live  decently." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Then,  at  least,  you  will 
take  measures  to  make  a  decent  life 
agreeable  to  them?  Otherwise  I  con- 
ceive your  intention  to  be  to  treat 
them  pretty  much  like  slaves." 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "  For  a  term,  I  would. 
That  is,  if  to  put  restrictions  upon 
them  is  to  do  so.  I  know  some  of 
those  Permissive-Bill  men,  and  they 
are  the  pick  of  our  workmen  and  small 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  57 

tradesmen,  and  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of 
our  population." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Puritanism  never  had  strong 
root  in  that  class  in  England." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "We  love  liberty!  We  hate 
tyranny!" 

MR,  FiNiSTARE.  "Puritanism  is  the  only 
thing  that  will  save  you.  I  warn  you 
of  that.  I  am  no  alarmist,  but  if  we 
are  to  speculate  upon  what  the .  year 
before  us  is  to  bring  forth,  I  think  it 
more  expedient  to  give  up  all  rose- 
coloured  delusions,  and  especially  our 
habit  of  sucking  phrases  like  sweet- 
meats —  Uberty  is  one  of  them,  for 
example.  We  read  the  newspapers 
daily,  and  yet  we  surround  ourselves 
with  a  description  of  scenic  extrava- 
ganza conjured  up  to  displace  uncom- 
fortable facts.  The  image  of  it  is  the 
Florentine  Garden  estabUshed  in  the 
midst  of  the  Plague." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "With  charming  stories  and 
delightful  ladies!  But,  Fini stare,  where 
are  they?" 


58  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Fie,  Sir  Patrick!  When  you 
have  so  many  beautiful  photographs 
in  shop  windows,  and  such  a  lot  of 
novels." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  don't  know  about  the  novels, 
but,  as  a  magistrate,  I  say  it  strikes 
me  the  other  things  come  under  the 
interpretation  of  a  certain  Act.  Some 
of  them  do,  decidedly." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "The  education  of  men  de- 
mands that  they  should  read  the  harsh- 
est aspects  of  the  truth.  Wrecks  are 
temporary  evils,  and  floods  too;  though 
you  will  have  to  pay  for  both:  but 
strikes  are  not,  and  still  less  so  the 
assassinations.  These  are  not  'writ  in 
water.'  They  operate  like  breaches  of 
the  land,  from  passions  as  inconsider- 
ate as  the  sea,  and  the  business  of  all 
able  men  is  to  set  to  work  to  repair 
the  damage.  We  are  labouring  in  a 
gale  —  firmly  seated  though  we  may 
seem  —  as  heavy  as  you  wou'd  find  out 
in    mid- Atlantic,    and    to    the    full    as 


► 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  59 

destructive  and  as  threatening  to  the 
country." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Half  a  minute,  my  prophetic 
friend.  I  am  reminded  of  the  story  of 
the  sailor  in  the  sinking  ship,  when  all 
hands  were  working  the  pumps,  and 
with  every  breath  he  fetched  he  sang 
a  bit  of  'The  Last  Rose  of  Summer'; 
and  they  say  that  after  an  hour  or 
two  of  it,  it  had  so  surprising  and 
prodigious  an  effect  on  the  crew  that 
they  gained  ground  on  the  water.  ' 

MR.  HELiON.  ''And  they  were  saved.  A 
well-known  story.  The  crew  stated  in 
their  depositions  that  compressed 
laughter  at  the  absurdity  of  their  com- 
rade in  singing  a  song  at  such  a  time 
acted  like  steam  power  on  their  ener- 
gies." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "And  you  remember,  Helion, 
the  wonderful  thing  was  the  rascal 
never  would  own  he  had  lifted  a  note." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "  Come,  come,  Finistare,  I 
can't  let  you  escape." 

MR.  HELION.  "Yes,  but  the  crew  were  di- 


60  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

vided  as  to  the  song,  and  some  said  it 
was,  'The  Bonny  Bunch  of  Roses  0.'  " 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "I  Can  assuic  you  I  have 
no  idea  of  escaping.     Besides  ..." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Why,  'The  Bonny  Bunch  of 
Roses'  is  the  British  sailors'  song  of 
the  Great  Napoleon  to  his  son  and 
heir.     I've  heard  it  — 

O  son,  don't  be  so  venturesome. 

As  to  try  to  steal  the  Bonny  Bunch  of  Roses  O. 

meaning  the  British  Isles,  you  know." 
MR.  m'nimbus.  "Let  the  two  have  it  out, 
Sir  Patrick.  Finistare  deserves  his 
answer,  and  I  should  like  to  hear  it." 
SIR  PATRICK.  "It  was  just  to  show  him 
how  that  we  survived  the  shakes  of 
the  fist  of  the  First  Imperial  Nap,  and 
shall  another  enemy,  at  home  or 
abroad.  D'ye  hear  them?  They're  off. 
Finistare  is  catching  it.  They've  piped 
engines  and  away  on  their  parallel 
lines,  and  one  calls  his  terminus  Per- 
dition, and  t'other  Millennial  Bliss!" 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  61 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''Pessimy  for  a  broadside!" 

siE  PATRICK.  "With  his  newspapers  and 
poUce  Usts  he  has  a  mine  of  sinister 
illustration  for  his  argument.  But  Op- 
timy's  my  boy  for  a  speech.  He  en- 
larges the  landscape.  He's  so  mighty 
horizontal." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''So  far  I  have  taken  you 
categorically,  Finistare.  I  do  not  ex- 
pect to  prove  anything  to  a  head 
possessed  by  preconceived  ideas;  but 
you  go  beyond  the  limits  recognised 
between  reasonable  men  when  you 
maintain  that  our  civilisation  is  super- 
ficial or  artificial.  And,  goodness!  to 
say  that  you  cannot  rely  on  it  at  all, 
excepting  as  you  see  it  —  do  I  mis- 
quote you?  - —  in  the  two  services,  the 
Army  and  Navy!  I  can't  see  your 
meaning." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Eh!  there  is  a  meaning, 
though.  And  there's  sense  in  the  mean- 
ing. He  means  discipline,  to  be  sure 
—  a  perfectly  reliable  civilisation,  which 


62  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

is  chain  —  mail  of  discipline,  and  not  a 
coat  of  varnish." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "  So  you  are  for  promoting 
civilisation  by  strengthening  the  agents 
of  barbarism,  and  putting  us  at  their 
mercy?  The  wildest  of  our  visionaries 
have  not  vented  such  inconceivable 
nonsense.  This  is  the  everlasting  out- 
cry of  the  retrogressionists  —  Trust  to 
Force!  namely,  the  force  of  the  strong 
arm.  I  charge  it  upon  a  puerile  im- 
patience that  this  cry  is  raised,  and  I 
do  not  hesitate  to  trace  that  angry 
impatience  to  cowardice.  You  are  in  a 
difficulty,  and  you  instantly  make  your 
appeal  to  a  system  that  shall  turn  men 
into  machines." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''Sir,  the  difference  between 
us  comes  of  our  different  reading  of  the 
nature  of  men." 

MR.  FiNisTARE.  ''You  have  abandoned  the 
rod,  Brighton,  and  with  it  all  idea  of 
schooling." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  ''Remember  that  Force  was 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT  63 

one  of  the  emissaries  despatched  by- 
Jove  to  bind  Prometheus!" 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Eh!  If  I  mistake  not,  the 
fellow  was  accused  of  thieving.  Under 
which  circumstances  it  was  as  well 
that  the  Law  should  be  brought  to 
bear  on  him,  and  by  the  very  stoutest 
of  the  agents  at  the  disposal  of  the 
tenant  Ruler  of  the  world  of  that 
period,  or  else  it  is  quite  certain  that 
he  would  soon  have  been  pronounced  a 
potentate  of  Sound,  and  no  more." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  '^Rejoice,  Mr.  M'Nimbus, 
in  thinking  that  you  have  found  the 
leaky  end  of  an  illustration;  but,  for 
all  that,  you  don't  scuttle  the  fact  in 
question,  which  is,  I  maintain,  that  the 
heroic  efforts  of  Humanity  have  always 
found  their  enemy  in  the  instrument 
known  as  Force.  Your  sympathies 
may  be  with  Jupiter  or  any  other  ty- 
rant. Mine,  and  I  am  happy  to  be- 
lieve the  majority  of  my  countrymen 
are  with  me,  go  against  him.  He  was 
to  the  old  Greeks,  or  I  should  say  to 


64  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

the  reflective  Greeks,  pretty  much  the 
same  as  the  chief  of  an  army  among  a 
subject  population  in  an  invaded  coun- 
try —  an  ahen  to  their  hopes,  the  foe 
of  their  aspirations!  and  his  gods  were 
an  aristocracy  of  power  opposed  to  a 
democracy  of  mortals  —  prayed  to, 
feasted,  sacrificed  to,  hymned  to,  ad- 
jured and  entreated  with  blood  and 
incense,  but  hated,  hated!  Yes,  in 
spite  of  your  simple  Homer  and  your 
pious  Pindar,  I  say  hated;  and  because 
they  were  feared,  and  were  supposed  to 
be  propitiated  by  gifts.  They  were  the 
Lords  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the 
Capitalists  of  ours  —  hated  now,  per- 
haps, a  little  unreasonably;  say  dis- 
trusted now.  It  is  a  stage  to  better 
things:  nevertheless  it  may  easily  be 
whipped  back  to  hatred.  For  Caliban, 
no  doubt,  Prospero's  revised  form  of 
Government  was  the  best.  But  the 
common  men  in  our  day  are  not  quite 
Calibans  —  are  they?  Finistare  and 
M' Nimbus  would  treat  them,  I  know, 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  65 

always  with  the  suspicion  of  their 
tendency  to  revert  to  the  Caliban  stage 
of  human  evolution.  But  such  an  ad- 
ministration will  not  elevate  them,  and 
as  we  cannot  cast  ourselves  from  them, 
and  would  not  if  we  could  —  for  it 
would  be  an  insufferable  baseness  — 
we  must  raise  them,  and  share  our  lot 
with  them.' 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''And  let  every  unit  be  the 
equal  of  the  number  one!  It  may  be 
called  the  plan  of  Humpty-Dumpty,  or 
the  confusion  of  atoms  caused  by  the 
suicide  of  him  that  sat  on  a  wall." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "A  diversion.  Sir  John,  I 
implore  you!  By  the  way,  to  borrow 
Optimy's  telling  tongue  a  minute,  I 
charge  it  upon  you  that  we've  fallen 
into  the  jaws  of  our  Scylla  and  Charyb- 
dis,  as  in  the  wash  of  the  wave  there 
and  back  across  the  straits.  You 
began." 

SIR  JOHN.  "If  you  had  been  listening  to 
your  tenantry  all  day,  and  glancing  over 
the  papers  for  a  diversion  before  din- 


66  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

ner,  you  would  have  begun  too,  Sir 
Patrick.  You  are  prosperous  in 
Ireland." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "We  have  not  violently  accel- 
erated the  death  rate  of  late,  and  are 
not  starving.  That's  true.  But,  for 
prosperity,  we  feel  something  like  the 
man  w^ho,  by  the  luck  of  circumstances, 
became  attached  to  the  grappling  hook 
of  the  balloon.  Says  he,  'I'm  elevated, 
but  my  destiny's  entirely  depending 
upon  this  immense  inflation,'  and,  he 
might  have  added,  'which  same  may 
be  made  to  grovel  and  collapse  by  a 
combination  of  gas  stokers.'  Doctor 
Anthony,  you  are  silent  tonight,  my 
dear  sir.  Generally,  when  I  put  old 
Ireland  up  you're  not  behindhand  for  a 
laugh  and  a  fling." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "  Not  from  want  of  love  for 
her." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Entirely  like  the  little  boys, 
then,  who  have  a  pretty  affection  for 
flies." 

THE  DOCTOR.  "I   See  too  many   doctors  in 


UP  TO  MIDNIGHT  67 

the    field    tonight    to    come    forward 
professionally." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "True;  and  there's  no  hoping 
to  kill  them  with  a  prescription.  We 
have  fal  en  a  prey  to  Optimy  and 
Pessimy,  when,  in  fact,  we  ought  to 
reduce  them  to  the  service  of  acting 
chorus  to  us  right  and  left  —  Primo 
and  Basso." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  '^Yes,  Finistare,  you  have 
again  taken  your  cue  from  the  Conti- 
nent. French  Communism  has  fright- 
ened you;  French  Imperialism,  result- 
ing from  French  Republicanism,  has 
appeared  to  warn  you  and  advise  you; 
German  success,  owing  to  Prussian 
solidity,  has  presented  itself  to  you  as 
the  solution  of  your  puzzle.  So  now 
you  are  for  a  King,  who  is  to  be  King 
indeed.  You  are  for  a  Minister  who 
scoffs  at  sentimental  fallacies,  at  all 
systems  which  he  can  prove  unsound 
with  the  strong  arm;  you  are  for  a 
State  acting  like  an  engine  —  so  very 
simple   in   its    complexity!      In    short, 


68  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

the  Prussian  model  is  the  model  you 
would  offer  us.  You  have  had  your 
strikes  in  Prussia,  too." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''Repressed." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Better  fight  them  out  on 
the  spot  than  have  them  repressed." 

SIR  JOHN.  "None  of  that,  Brighton!  Post- 
ponement is  wise  policy.  Always  post- 
pone the  active  settlement  of  a  quarrel, 
if  you  can." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "I  give  notice  that  I  do 
not  let  this  subject  drop." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "I  give  notice  that  I  have  to 
speak  an  eulogy  —  praying  it  mayn't 
be  an  elegy  —  on  the  question  of 
Credit;  and  that  I  feel  it  personally 
and  deeply  you  will  take  for  granted 
when  I  say  that  without  the  interven- 
tion of  that  benignest  of  the  God- 
desses, you'd  never  be  hearing  the 
voice  that  addresses  you  now.  I  de- 
fend the  grocers.  Moreover,  I  under- 
take to  do  it  convincingly," 

THE  DOCTOR.  "I  Congratulate  them  on  their 
advocate.     Some    time    hence    I    shall 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  69 

have  a  word  to  say  upon  modern 
spiritualistic  manifestations." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''Ay,  but  no  holding  forth,  no 
advocacy.  Don't  let's  be  fiery  men, 
but  sober  citizens  exchanging  ideas 
over  a  table  we  hope  to  keep  from 
trouble  —  as  much  as  we  can." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "  Good  heart,  Sir  Johu!  The 
prospect  of  the  year  is  a  trifle  cloudy 
at  present,  but  when  did  Englishmen 
shrink  from  looking  at  a  cloud?" 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  don't  call  it  a  cloud  when 
English  labourers  decline  to  give  hon- 
est work  for  their  money.  It  looks  to 
me  as  if  the  Brute  had  found  out  his 
strength  and  meant  to  reign." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "If  to  our  misfortune  he 
should  try  it,  he  will  make  the  same 
discovery  as  the  Brute  did  when  he 
originally  came  across  men  for  a  trial 
of  strength." 

SIR  JOHN.  "Let  us  hope  for  the  best,  and 
pray  for  our  fellows,  and  sleep  Chris- 
tians!" 


V. 


The  Argument.  —  An  Invocation  of 
Sir  Tatton  Sykes.  Desire  for  the 
metropolis  in  wet  weather.  A  scene 
of  the  Floods,  and  discussions  on 
the  picturesque.  Mr.  M'Nimbus 
recommends  a  method  of  imparting 
admiration  of  it.  Poetic  farmers' 
boys  and  bootmakers.  English  im- 
agination. Emperor  Napoleon:  a 
subject  for  History,  not  for  Poetry. 
His  great  service  to  Italy.  Mr. 
M'Nimbus  on  Dynasties  in  France. 
The  Emperor's  fortitude.  The  Na- 
poleonic legend,  and  its  effect  on 
French  digestion.  Sir  Patrick  cites 
Marshal  MacMahon  in  favor  of  the 
Emperor.  Short  passage  of  arms 
between  Sir  Patrick  and  Mr. 
M'Nimbus. 

''Weather  like  this  would  have  been 
enough  to  drive  good  old  Sir  Tatton  Sykes 
to  London!"  Sir  John  Saxon  said,  invok- 
ing  the  memory   of   that   departed   friend, 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT 


71 


the  idol  of  his  youth,  for  whom  he  claimed 
rank  as  one  of  the  first  and  grandest 
among  recent  generations  of  Englishmen. 
Venerable  Sir  Tatton,  though  his  fields 
were  under  water  and  his  rides  a  slough, 
would  have  stuck  to  country  we  may  be 
sure;  but  his  degenerate  admirers  had  a 
craving  for  tonics  of  the  mind  which  are 
produced  in  town,  and  are  nowhere  out  of 
it  to  be  had  of  so  sparkling  ah  astringency, 
notwithstanding  the  skill  of  our  journals  in 
bottling  them,  ^'^ay,  the  effect  of  these  is 
to  turn  one's  horse's  head  to  town,  as  by  a 
natural  attraction;  they  create  an  excite- 
ment in  a  man  of  ordinary  combat  and 
energy  that  it  is  only  to  be  allayed  by  his 
brushing  against  his  fellows. 

Mr.  Helion  had  drawn  attention  to 
the  "picturesqueness  of  the  Floods"  on  a 
night  when  Venus  was  about  to  breast 
them,  overflowing  with  her  warm  white 
fire.  Jove  was  coming  from  the  eastward, 
and  the  strip  of  a  moon  was  in  a  cloud  by 
itself.  Jove  was  just  visible,  Venus  lumi- 
nous, Dian  veiled  and   tossing   away   frag- 


72  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

ments  of  duskj-coloured  vapour  to  the 
gale;  there  was  a  space  of  untroubled  blue, 
darkening  about  the  setting  star,  and  the 
vast  calm  sheet  of  the  invading  water, 
with  its  line  of  riverside  sallows  and  field- 
dividing  elms  and  hedgerows,  reflected  all. 
The  scene  was  of  a  memorable  splendour. 
Unfortunately,  Mr.  Helion  used  the  term 
"picturesque,"  and  thereby  set  the  satiric 
powers  of  Mr.  M'Nimbus  in  motion.  He 
drummed  on  it  for  the  better  part  of  an 
hour.  The  picturesque!  That  was  our 
modern  craze!  We  rushed  abroad  in  a 
perpetual  fever  to  catch  sight  of  the  pictur- 
esque, too  often  the  painted  curtain  across 
a  tragedy!  It  filled  us  with  wind,  and 
made  us  think  ourselves  possessed  by  the 
sublime  Unutterable,  because  we  could  ex- 
press just  nothing  at  all  concerning  it,  and 
he  was  the  inspired  man  of  the  party  who 
managed  to  convey  his  sensations  in  the 
greater  number  of  gasps  and  exclamations, 
like  a  howling  dervish!  Eh,  the  pictur- 
esque. It  was  a  purely  latter-day  phan- 
tasy;   a    delusion    invented    to    flatter    the 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  73 

idle-minded;  a  make-believe  of  something 
immense  in  them,  which  they  were  at  pains 
to  communicate  by  a  set  of  newly  coined 
phrases  belonging  to  no  known  mortal 
tongue.  Mr.  M 'Nimbus  recommended,  in 
the  place  of  any  further  attempt  at  speech 
upon  the  matter  of  the  picturesque,  that 
the  slap  in  the  stomach,  said  to  be  the 
expressive  call  for  sympathy  under  the 
influence  of  great  emotions  between  neigh- 
bours among  certain  Eastern  tribes,  be 
administered.  We  should  thus  contrive  to 
be  understood  inmaediately;  we  should  ad- 
dress ourselves  to  the  seat  of  our  wonderful 
ideas  as  regards  the  picturesque. 

Mr.  Brighton  expostulated  on  behalf  of 
the  picturesque.  He  thought  it  an  elevat- 
ing and  ennobling  passion;  he  was  sure  that 
it  led  us  on  by  a  civilising  process;  for 
proof  of  which  he  cited  farmers'  boys  and 
bootmakers,  and  others  of  low  estate,  who 
had  risen  to  the  publication  of  poems  under 
the  holy  charm  of  the  aspects  of  nature. 

Mr.  M' Nimbus  pointedly  remarked 
that  he  preferred  good  boots  to  bad  poems. 


74  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

Mr.  HelioD  agreed  that  they  were 
altogether  preferable;  ''and  there  can  be  no 
doubt,"  said  he,  "that  these  versicles  of 
the  half-literate  come  frequently  of  a  rest- 
less craving  for  the  jam  tarts  of  society. 
A  kind  clergyman  fancies  he  has  caught  a 
Chatterton,  and  a  reviewer  anxious  to 
expend  an  ebbing  literary  enthusiasm  in 
the  purchase  of  a  situation  as  benefactor 
in  a  biography,  lifts  the  victim  on  a  puff. 
Ladies  pet  the  victim.  He  gets  his  bit  of 
jam  tart  and  some  blancmange;  but  it  is 
discovered  that  he  is  not  a  Chatterton,  and 
he  is  let  down  again.  Clergymen,  reviewer, 
and  victim,  are  chiefly  to  blame,  in  about 
equal  proportions;  the  world  and  the 
picturesque  are  not;  and  there  will  always 
be  the  picturesque  to  console  the  poor 
fellow,  if  his  passion  for  it  was  originally 
genuine." 

"Eh,  if  he  can  see  the  picturesque 
through  the  bedraggled  drab  of  a  thriftless 
non-cooking  British  wife!"  said  Mr.  M'Nim- 
bus.  "But  the  truth  first,  and  the  pictur- 
esque after  it,  and  insomuch  and  no  more 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  75 

than  it  harmonises  with  the  actual  present 
truth." 

"To  the  deuce  with  the  picturesque 
when  it  drowns  my  land,  and  ruins  my 
tenants,  and  starves  poor  labouring  men!" 
cried  Sir  John,  ruffled  by  the  beauty  of  the 
cruel  scene,  or  by  the  praises  of  it. 

Sir  Patrick,  Doctor  Anthony,  and  Mr. 
Finistare  had  gone.  Mr.  M'Nimbus,  Mr. 
Brighton,  and  Mr.  Helion  followed  them, 
and  Sir  John,  left  alone  with  the  pictur- 
esque, hated  it.  He  was  c6nsequently  soon 
back  in  London,  where  the  news  of  the 
death  of  the  ex-Emperor  Napoleon  was  two 
days  old.  This  was  an  event  to  warm  him 
through  and  through  by  filliping  imagina- 
tion —  a  spirit  generally  too  insignificant 
in  our  country  to  obtain  release,  except 
when  famous  persons  suffer  such  reverses 
as  to  stumble,  to  fall,  or  to  die;  for  if  they 
are  comfortably  housed,  fed,  and  attended, 
we  English  know  that  a  decease  must  be 
against  their  wishes,  and  by  that  means 
the  notion  of  an  over-shadowing  calamity 
is  superinduced,  which  is,  as  all  who  have 


76  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

listened  to  got  sips  are  aware,  the  alarm 
clock  of  popular  imagination.  It  must  of 
necessity  get  up  and  come  out,  or  we 
perish  of  a  fever  of  the  nerves. 

In  the  case  of  Sir  John  Saxon,  he, 
assisted  by  the  journals,  thought  and 
imagined  sufficient  over  the  event  to  modify 
his  drenched,  quaking  idea  of  the  floods, 
and  make  him  look  back  on  the  scene  ap- 
plauded by  Mr.  Helion,  as  on  the  accesso- 
ries of  a  funeral  pageant  of  a  mournful  and 
touching  picture&queness.  He  insisted 
strongly  on  the  de  moriuis  maxim  in  speak- 
ing of  the  ex-Emperor.  He  wanted  to 
have  an  ode  or  an  elegy  written  on  the 
subject,  and  suggested  one  or  other  of 
these  forms  of  veise  to  Mr.  Helion.  That 
gentleman  bowed,  and  supposed  that  many 
odes  and  elegies  would  be  composed,  but 
not  by  poets. 


SIR  JOHN.  ''Why  not?     Because  we've  got 

none?" 
MR.  HELION.     "This  occasion  will  not  be  a 

test  whether  you   have  them   or   not. 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  77 

Read  Byron's  lines  on  the  '  First  Na- 
poleon/ and  Manzoni's  'Fifth  of  May,' 
beginning  'Efu/  which  is  untranslate- 
able  to  our  language  in  its  effect.  You 
will  find  in  those  two  poems  exactly 
what  will  be  missing  in  a  poem  on 
Napoleon  III,  for  the  reason  that  the 
last  of  the  Napoleonides  does  not  sup- 
ply the  stuff.  He  is  for  history.  The 
good  qualities  in  him  make  no  appeal 
to  poetry,  and  poetry  spurns  the  bad. 
He  is  seen  to  have  been  successful 
generally  by  accident,  and  unsu(  cessful 
o\\dng  to  unfulfilled  pretensions.  The 
position  he  presumed  to  seize  com- 
pelled him  to  act  the  part  of  a  military 
chief,  and  he  was  not  one;  he  was 
simply  an  artillery  student  and  a 
reader  of  his  uncle's  life.  His  ItaUan 
campaign  was  hio  last  piece  of  luck. 
For  that,  however,  he  deserves  the 
glorification  of  Italians.  I  do  not 
wonder  to  find  in  that  period  a  poetess 
of  high  lyrical  exaltation  magnifying 
him.     The  expedition  to  Italy  was  his 


78  GEORGE  MEREDITH 

« 

noblest  public  act,  and  the  monument 
about  to  be  set  up  in  memory  of  his 
service  to  the  Italian  cause  in  Milan 
will  celebrate  it,  and  confound  the 
accusers  who  decline  to  see  that  he  had 
a  virtue.  A  real  but  not  a  roving 
Juvenal  might  point  the  sternest  moral 
from  the  career  of  this  man,  who  was 
true  in  private  friendship,  personally- 
amiable,  without  rancour,  without 
meanness,  capable  of  conceiving  loftily, 
and  riskine  largely  for  a  supreme  ob- 
ject, and  who  yet,  in  his  own  country, 
after  twenty  years  of  trial  as  a  mon- 
arch, earned  the  gratitude  of  none  but 
the  shopkeepers." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  don't  like  that  way  of  speak- 
ing at  all.  He  was  our  staunch  friend; 
he  was  the  friend  of  England.  I  call 
that  a  title  worth  having." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "He  was  the  friend  of  Eng- 
land so  long  as  the  exigencies  of  his 
dynasty  permitted  it.  Bismarck's  reve- 
lations have  shown  that  the  France  of 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  79 

Imperialism  might  have  had  a  surprise 
for  you." 

SIR  PATRICK.  ''Bismarck,  my  dear  Finistare, 
might  cock  his  eye  at  any  one  of  us 
here  and  make  us  smell  of  brimstone. 
Would  that  be  our  fault,  I  ask  you?" 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "The  exigencies  of  his  dy- 
nasty! There  you  ring  the  crack.  A 
conjuror  has  his  exigencies;  I  am  not 
aware  that  a  dynasty  has,  nor  that  a 
leader  of  men  should  have.  To  per- 
petuate a  dynasty  requires  a  clean 
hand,  or  a  strong  one,  not  a  surpass- 
ingly flashing  one  at  legerdemain,  that 
hatches  an  egg  in  a  pocket  handker- 
chief, an  eagle  out  of  a  chestnut. 
Work  well  for  the  day;  leave  a  dynasty 
to  the  care  of  itself.  A  dynasty  in 
France  is  the  lid  on  a  pot.  There's 
nothing  for  it  to  take  root  in.  He  was 
a  dreamer,  not  a  leader,  least  of  all,  a 
worker.  His  strength  was  with  his 
agents.  He  was  a  supine  man  of  many 
servants  in  a  city  of  luxury,  the 
which   is   a   signification   of   a   day   of 


80  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

betrayal  and  explosion  to  come.  Of 
all  men  he  should  have  been  alertest, 
for  when  he  gained  his  throne  he 
agreed  to  supply  the  place  of  Provi- 
dence to  the  French  people,  to  labour 
for  them,  to  think  for  them,  to  fatten 
them,  and  to  give  them  glory  cheap." 

THE  DOCTOR.  ''He  has  shown  a  princely 
fortitude  under  every  form  of  advers- 
ity. In  exile,  in  imprisonment,  de- 
feated on  the  battlefield,  all  but 
hopeless  in  the  hands  of  the  surgeons, 
and  his  dislike  of  pain  was  as  sensitive 
as  yours  or  mine.  He  met  his  fate 
bravely,   with  complete  dignity." 

SIR  JOHN.  ''There!  that's  what  I  admire  in 
him;  and  I'll  tell  you  this  into  the 
bargain:  Everything  the  French  have 
to  thank  him  for  he  has  got  from  us. 
Whatever  they  don't  like  in  him  was 
owing  to  themselves." 

MR.  BRIGHTON.  "Hardly  so  bad  as  that. 
But  they  were  fully  prepared  for  the 
Napoleonic  advent;  they  wanted  only 
the    spark    when    their    Napoleon    ap- 


UP  TO   MIDNIGHT  81 

peared  before  them.  They  cannot 
stand  aside  to  blame  him.  Napoleon- 
ism  was  in  their  blood.  All  they  can 
say  is,  that  when  he  rushed  to  his 
ruin  and  theirs  he  did  it  unreadily, 
and  so  far  deceived  them." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  ''Hence  their  sobs." 

MR.  FiNiSTARE.  "The  Monarchist  Thiers, 
the  Republican  Beranger,  and  all  the 
French  song-writers,  assisted  to  sow 
the  Napoleonic  legend.  By  their  aid 
the  French  have  been  fed  on  falsified 
history  for  fifty  years.  They  enjoyed 
it.  They  were  shut  out  from  the  light, 
and  fed  in  any  quantities,  until  egre- 
gious vanity  became  a  monstrous  organ 
in  their  debilitated  constitutions." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Which  lost  them  Strass- 
burg." 

MR.  HELiON.  "Be  generous.  They  have  had 
their  lesson,  and  are  trying  hard  to 
extract  a  profit  from  it.  I  shudder  for 
our  virtue  when  I  hear  this  complacent 
language  of  their  censors." 

MR.  FINISTARE.  "  Napoleou  I  was  the  scourge 


82  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

of  Europe:  the  base  and  idle  French 
worship  of  him  has  made  Napoleon 
III  the  scom"ge  of  France." 

MR.  m'nimbus.  "Napoleon  III  happened  to 
be  not  a  general,  or  there  would  have 
been  danger  of  another  edition  of  the 
First." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Listen  to  me,  and  justice  be 
our  law.  My  countryman,  the  illus- 
trious Emperor's  best  marshal,  and  one 
of  the  true  gentlemen  of  a  world  much 
in  want  of  the  article  —  I  mean  the 
late  Napoleon — " 

MB.  m'nimbus,  "It  appears  you  are  in 
some  confusion,  Sir  Patrick." 

SIR  PATRICK.  "Sir,  I'll  not  think  it  an 
enemy's  eye  to  which  it  so  appears, 
for  as  they  say,  the  odds  are  even  to 
a  looker-on,  and  my  meaning  is  clear 
to  the  fancy,  though  it  mayn't  go  off 
like  a  squib.  And,  let  me  add,  Mr. 
M'Nimbus,  that  I  give  you  credit  for 
predicting  all  the  disasters  of  France, 
and  perceiving  that  a  beaten  general 
must    be    a    bad    one.     Keep    to    the 


UP   TO   MIDNIGHT  83 

winning  side,  Sir,  and  count  on  a 
supper  for  a  song.  Don't  I  remember 
the  Tuileries  in  its  glory,  and  that  I 
was  once  a  guest  there?  And  where 
was  there  a  better  host  than  His 
Majesty,  the  Emperor?  Vive  V  Em- 
pereur!  I'll  cry  just  thrice  as  loud, 
not  because  he's  dead.  Five  hours  he 
sat  in  the  saddle  at  Sedan,  and  which 
suffered  most  of  him,  the  soul  or  the 
body,  this  world  shall  never  know;  but 
take  them  together,  and  no  martyr  in 
his  agony  can  call  on  a  greater  expia- 
tion for  mortal  sin,  or  —  I  speak  under 
correction  —  a  livelier  claim  upon 
human  forgiveness,  and  let  us  hope 
and  devoutly  pray,  divine.  Sir,  we 
are  all  sinners,  and  the  Judge  is 
above." 
MR.  m'nimbus.  ''But  not  distant." 
SIR  PATRICK.  "You  tempt  me  to  fear  it, 
Sir,  for  I  have  been  taught  to  associate 
the  idea  of  Him  with  mercy,  with  com- 
passion, with  leniency." 
MR.  m'nimbus.  "Nay,    those   be   three   dif- 


84  GEORGE   MEREDITH 

ferent  qualities;  or  merely  in  the  sum 
of  them,  eloquence?" 

SIR  PATRICK.  "They  are  variations  of  the 
same,  Sir;  the  address  of  a  treble 
knock  to  the  door  not  likely  to  open 
to  a  beggarly  one.  But  I  am  reminded 
by  your  divergencies  of  the  remark  I 
was  making,  which  is,  that  my  honour- 
able countryman,  Marshal  M'Mahon, 
in  his  evidence  before  the  committee 
of  some  sort  sitting  to  inquire  into  the 
cause  of  the  disasters  of  the  late  war, 
declares  that  the  Emperor,  his  master, 
was  irresponsible  for  the  calamity  of 
Sedan  in  any  way,  and  indeed  twice, 
and  the  second  time  pressingly,  ad- 
vised him  not  to  direct  his  march 
towards  Bazaine,  but  to  retreat  to 
Paris.  Therefore,  Sir,  I  am  with 
M'Mahon,  and  I  exonerate  the  Em- 
peror." 

SIR  JOHN.  "I  hold  with  3'ou,  Sir  Patrick." 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


DEC  2  8  1960 


jrc'n 


1969 


orm  L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444 


i^R    Meredith  - 

5010  Up  to  midnight. 
U6^   


i  DEa2^J9^0 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  370  585    2 


PR 

5010 

U65 


THE  LIBRARY 
tfNIVERSITY  OF  CALIF( 

Lcs  a:n'geles 


